hidden text? - DNForum - Domain Sales, Domain Forum, Domain Appraisals, Domain Registrars

**kvarnsten** · 11-15-2004, 10:56 AM

I remember back in the days when people used to put tons of hidden text (small text with the same color as the background) to get indexed more by the SEs.
I also know I heared that many SEs started igonring this type of text. So my question is, whats up with this today? Anyone have an idea where the limit goes as to where i.e. google will reckon the text as content? Is it enough to use a slightly different color shade than the background and font size 8+ or is this problem really mostly a myth altogether? also when talking of google anyone know how large part of the page google will use for indexation? Do they index all the words reckognized as content or just i.e. the first few hundreds?

thanks

**cwsteam.com** · 11-15-2004, 09:36 PM

A BIG NO NO NO. HIDDEN TEXT=NO, Hidden Link= BIG BIG NO.

**lazydog** · 11-16-2004, 11:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cwsteam.com

Hidden Link= BIG BIG NO.

A question
- Is hidden link OK if it links to a page that has been "disallowed" in robots.txt?

Thanks.

**Flexi Web Host** · 11-16-2004, 11:17 AM

I should imagine a hidden link is frowned upon regardless of wether you have blocked the search engines access to it and to be honest what would be the point of the link in that case.

**dotNetKing** · 11-16-2004, 02:03 PM

Search engines don't like being tricked.

If you deliberately (or inadvertantly) trick them, you risk being banned from the search engine or at least having your ranking penalized.

**stevey** · 11-16-2004, 02:17 PM

you will be banned by search engines for putting hidden text or links on your site

**lazydog** · 11-16-2004, 02:19 PM

Is this a hidden link?

Code:

<a href="/somepage.html"></a>

**Jer.Net** · 11-18-2004, 12:00 PM

it may work for a while, if you don't mind getting banned ;0)

**lazydog** · 11-18-2004, 12:42 PM

hmm.. I use hidden links to block bad bots and leechers. Bad bots are defined as those that do not follow robots.txt

Now I have to decide between blocking leechers and getting banned. Thats a tough one.

**cwsteam.com** · 11-19-2004, 01:55 AM

It wont work, I have seen a BIG website banned for this kind of link.

**shadeofpale** · 01-04-2005, 08:48 AM

Hm, but if you put the link <a href="/somepage.html"></a> in the noframe-content if you use a frameset.

**POLiSH** · 01-08-2005, 09:17 PM

All I can say is Sandbox ..

**fryman04** · 01-08-2005, 11:20 PM

lol... what does the sandbox have to do with hidden text??

**Acro** · 01-09-2005, 12:32 AM

Urban legend. You will not be penalized for using hidden links. You can also link punctuation marks (dots, commas etc) to pages. Works like a charm.

**alien** · 01-09-2005, 12:59 AM

SEs do not follow Javascript links. You can use CSS to hide text, but it's not recommended.

**POLiSH** · 01-10-2005, 12:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fryman04

lol... what does the sandbox have to do with hidden text??

LOL ...Sandbox... Dosen't everyone say if you use any type blackhat / grayhat SEO you'll be throw in the sandbox for life?

Anyways where did the term sandbox come from?

g

**cwsteam.com** · 01-10-2005, 07:44 PM

BTW, why do you want to put a hidden link ? Is just for the purpose iof an inbound link to the target website ? I would not suggest a hidden link AT ALL.